Flash and Shockwave Forum

Adobe is fighting Apple's blockade of Flash technology on iOS devices with an experimental software called Wallaby that can convert Flash files into HTML5. Wallaby, a cross-platform AIR app demoed in October, is now available to download on Adobe's Labs pages, as a technology preview for PC and Mac developers.

Wallaby enables Flash developers to recycle Flash content (such as advertisements) for use on Apple devices like iPhones and iPads, which are known for not supporting Flash technology. It's been more than a year since Apple CEO Steve Jobs shared his "Thoughts on Flash," claiming Flash is an obsolete technology and a resource and battery hog for mobile devices.

Wallaby allows you to drag and drop a Flash .fla file in. The software then outputs HTML-friendly files that can be edited in Dreamweaver. The app can't handle more than simple animations and transitions at the moment. Wallby works best with output in Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome browsers, both based on Webkit. Adobe said it was testing other browsers as well.

Flash isn't obsolete (and I have no problem saying that as a web designer who hates full-page Flash "sites") with MPEG LA trying to extort money out of anyone who wants to encode video for any reason in existence on planet Earth. Internet Explorer 9 and Safari 5 are already obsolete when it comes to displaying the video element though it'll be Internet Explorer 9 that holds back the web over the upcoming years. Flash will be the only way to reliably display video content until whatever last version of IE that does not support the decided upon royalty-free video codec disappears and that might be Internet Explorer 10 in 14 or 15 years if we're lucky. Even the US Justice Department is investigating Apple and Microsoft at this point for participating in the extortion of the open web.